Proof Texting

[Rivers]

I recently finished reading This Is My Doctrine by Charles Harrel.  It’s a fascinating read which is all about different ways Mormon doctrines have been understood at different periods of time.  

The thing that really stuck out to me was how much our church proof texts the scriptures.  We are really bad at taking scriptures completely out of context to fit our current theological views. The early Christians did the same with Hebrew Bible.  

As a church which believes in continuing revelation, why do we have to proof-text in order to explain our theology.  Shouldn’t modern revelation be enough to speak for itself?

Edited November 2, 2017 by Rivers

[The Nehor]

I blame that ******* (term for illegitimate child I forgot is censored on this site for reasons only the grand glorious mods can comprehend) Gutenberg for letting the common people get their filthy grubby ignorant hands on the Bible. We were warned but did we listen?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That is mostly a joke but when you encourage amateurs to play with scripture it is going to happen. It was even designed to happen. Elder Oaks gave a fascinating discourse on how scripture is built to facilitate revelation and that is not limited to the historic meaning:

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1995/01/scripture-reading-and-revelation?lang=eng

Edited November 2, 2017 by The Nehor

[ksfisher]

9 minutes ago, Rivers said:

I recently finished reading This Is My Doctrine by Charles Harrel.  It’s a fascinating read which is all about different ways Mormon doctrines have been understood at different periods of time.  

The thing that really stuck out to me was how much our church proof texts the scriptures.  We are really bad at taking scriptures completely out of context to fit our current theological views. The early Christians did the same with Hebrew Bible.  

As a church which believes in continuing revelation, why do we have to proof-text in order to explain our theology.  Shouldn’t modern revelation be enough to speak for itself?

"I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning."

(1 Nephi 19:23)

 

[bluebell]

8 minutes ago, Rivers said:

I recently finished reading This Is My Doctrine by Charles Harrel.  It’s a fascinating read which is all about different ways Mormon doctrines have been understood at different periods of time.  

The thing that really stuck out to me was how much our church proof texts the scriptures.  We are really bad at taking scriptures completely out of context to fit our current theological views. The early Christians did the same with Hebrew Bible.  

As a church which believes in continuing revelation, why do we have to proof-text in order to explain our theology.  Shouldn’t modern revelation be enough to speak for itself?

I know that we are bad at doing this, but I'm not sure how bad it actually is for us to do.

I'm reminded of Nephi, where he teaches that we should liken all scriptures to ourselves.  I think that it's really interesting to learn scriptures in context and it can amazing to see the scriptures in a completely different, but legitimate way.  But, I think that the value of scripture is more than just the context of when they were written.  A lot of that context does not apply to us and it's usefulness can see less if that's all we can do with them.

[clarkgoble]

26 minutes ago, Rivers said:

As a church which believes in continuing revelation, why do we have to proof-text in order to explain our theology.  Shouldn’t modern revelation be enough to speak for itself?

For non-Mormons we're teaching modern revelation isn't enough to speak for itself. Often you have to show why something is a concern. Build on common ground, as the old discussions used to tell missionaries.

I think the Church has tried to improve proof-texts to avoid acontexutal applications. So you don't hear Job 19:26 used to prooftext the resurrection for instance. Whereas that was part of the discussion scriptures when I was on my mission. In general bad proof texts are usually done just out of ignorance or incompetence by well meaning people.

Beyond that, I think an issue is when a doctrine is not clearly presented in a formal textual revelation. You can have a middle ground with things like the proclamation on the family, but often you get appeals to scriptures with a particular interpretation. How well that works varies with the topic being taught.

The Church isn't perfect in all this. You still find either an old out of date resource (institute manuals I'm looking at you) or error in a manual. But I think the Church really is trying and is leaps and bounds better than it was when I was younger.

The bigger issue these days is less Church manuals than members (or critics) taking quotes from GAs out of context to make a point.

Edited November 2, 2017 by clarkgoble

[JLHPROF]

I don't think we proof-text to prove our doctrines all that much.  I do think we proof-text often to find doctrine that did come by modern revelation among the original biblical texts.

I found that book interesting too, but the anti approach it took was pretty obvious.
Still, it showed how much we also have changed our doctrine since the early days.  Our theology on the Godhead alone took nearly the first century of Mormonism to reach its current shape.

[Rivers]

3 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

I found that book interesting too, but the anti approach it took was pretty obvious.
 

In this presentation, Bro. Harrell says that critics claim he didn’t go anti enough while a lot of members said he went too far.

 

[Duncan]

When i was a teenage the Elders told me there was a scripture in the Bible that says beating your kids is okay. Sometime later our fairly new convert Sunday School teacher asked us if we have any questions about the church that we could write them down and give them to her and next week she would have an answer. So, wrote my question about where does it say specifically in the Bible that beating your kids is okay. Next sunday, she was all a flutter. She told us she's been praying and crying and trying to find an answer to this one question and she's said that if anything is amiss to let her know and it's not our fault and that kind of thing. She asked us who asked about being beaten by your parents and using the Bible as justification? I said I did because the Missionaries told me in the Bible and I just wanted to know where it is................ oh, boy, was she mad!!!!!!!!!!! no,no one was getting a beaten from any parents

[hope_for_things]

44 minutes ago, Rivers said:

I recently finished reading This Is My Doctrine by Charles Harrel.  It’s a fascinating read which is all about different ways Mormon doctrines have been understood at different periods of time.  

The thing that really stuck out to me was how much our church proof texts the scriptures.  We are really bad at taking scriptures completely out of context to fit our current theological views. The early Christians did the same with Hebrew Bible.  

As a church which believes in continuing revelation, why do we have to proof-text in order to explain our theology.  Shouldn’t modern revelation be enough to speak for itself?

We proof text for two reasons, one is a critical naivete about what the original texts and authors of those texts meant, so this really is an honest mistake which can be solved if people are better educated. 

The second reason is I believe people privilege the texts of scripture as having more authoritative power than the writings of others.  This is part of theology and tradition, yet in Mormonism, as you point out, the concept of continuing revelation should counter balance this text privileging.  

I think what is unfortunate is the way the texts were written, in the first person voice as if it were God who was doing the talking, rather than the author of the text sharing his/her perspective.  This is a literary device that is largely lost on our current generations as people assume that words written in this way were communicated directly from God to the person in perfect form and transmitted to their scriptures.  This just isn't the case.  Even very well read scholars commit this same error in assuming that texts written in first person language represent the unfiltered words of God, rather than the words of the person who wrote the text.  

I'm fine with reading scripture as inspired traditions that have value and lessons to learn, but I make no mistake in thinking that God wrote any of scripture, as all scriptures were written by humans, and represent the thinking of the humans with perhaps some degree of inspiration sprinkled into them.  

[hope_for_things]

18 minutes ago, Rivers said:

In this presentation, Bro. Harrell says that critics claim he didn’t go anti enough while a lot of members said he went too far.

 

I didn't think it was anti at all, it was a scholarly and dispassionate approach which I really appreciate, there are very few people that can strike that kind of balance without getting too apologetic or critical at the same time.  I think he did an excellent job of approaching the topics without a bias towards one interpretation or another.  

[Jeanne]

17 minutes ago, Duncan said:

When i was a teenage the Elders told me there was a scripture in the Bible that says beating your kids is okay. Sometime later our fairly new convert Sunday School teacher asked us if we have any questions about the church that we could write them down and give them to her and next week she would have an answer. So, wrote my question about where does it say specifically in the Bible that beating your kids is okay. Next sunday, she was all a flutter. She told us she's been praying and crying and trying to find an answer to this one question and she's said that if anything is amiss to let her know and it's not our fault and that kind of thing. She asked us who asked about being beaten by your parents and using the Bible as justification? I said I did because the Missionaries told me in the Bible and I just wanted to know where it is................ oh, boy, was she mad!!!!!!!!!!! no,no one was getting a beaten from any parents

I have mentioned this before.but I had an RM that read me Bible passages that said it was okay to pet...

[Duncan]

4 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

I have mentioned this before.but I had an RM that read me Bible passages that said it was okay to pet...

charming

[Jeanne]

4 minutes ago, Duncan said:

charming

Yes...until I gave him the what for...like that was really going to work for him ya know?

[Bob Crockett]

What is proof texting? 

Are we required to know Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew to fully understand the scriptures?  

Or may we accept the text as is? 

Certainly, if the former is the case, few are qualified.

[Benjamin McGuire]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prooftext

Quote

Prooftexting (sometimes "proof-texting" or "proof texting") is the practice of using isolated, out-of-context quotations from a document to establish a proposition in eisegesis. Such quotes may not accurately reflect the original intent of the author, and a document quoted in such a manner, when read as a whole, may not support the proposition for which it was cited. The term has currency primarily in theological and exegetical circles.

The challenge we have isn't that we prooftext from time to time. We actually have the idea of prooftexting built into our scripture (and thus into our doctrine, right?). Nephi's likening scripture unto himself is nothing less than prooftexting. The idea that prooftexting is bad is a predominantly protestant idea that comes out of certain ideas about the nature of scripture (that we don't generally hold to). Where it becomes bad for us (as Latter-day Saints) is when we confuse the prooftext and our intention/interpretation based on the prooftext with the intention/interpretation of the original author of scripture. It's okay for Nephi to repurpose Isaiah in the context of his people and their situation. It's not okay for Nephi to then claim that this is really what Isaiah intended all along ....

[Rivers]

45 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

What is proof texting? 

Are we required to know Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew to fully understand the scriptures?  

Or may we accept the text as is? 

Certainly, if the former is the case, few are qualified.

Good point.  I guess nobody is qualified to interpret the Book of Mormon since nobody knows Reformed Egyptian.

[strappinglad]

So I assume it is a bad thing to assume that an author actually meant what he said. He really meant to write what he meant but got confused and wrote something other than what he meant. We know this because we know what he meant to say was different than what he wrote.

   I am glad to hear this because I just finished reading Exodus 20 through 24, and I hope it doesn't mean what it says.

[Calm]

I am assuming you read it in English.  If so, that isn't what the original author or editors wrote.

[strappinglad]

If only the Nephites had not done the reformed Egyptian thing and stuck with Hebrew ( and not modified that !). How much clearer would the BoM be. Then again, the Rabiis have been arguing about the interpretation of OT scriptures since forever. Guess we're up that messy creek.

[strappinglad]

15 minutes ago, Calm said:

 that isn't what the original author or editors wrote.

If only there was some way to have access to the original authors and their intended meaning. Hmm .

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, strappinglad said:

So I assume it is a bad thing to assume that an author actually meant what he said. He really meant to write what he meant but got confused and wrote something other than what he meant. We know this because we know what he meant to say was different than what he wrote.

   I am glad to hear this because I just finished reading Exodus 20 through 24, and I hope it doesn't mean what it says.

 

2 hours ago, Calm said:

I am assuming you read it in English.  If so, that isn't what the original author or editors wrote.

Most English translations are fairly clear, as is Paul on the Law as a schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.  As someone on this thread pointed out, the Rabbis have spent thousands of years discussing biblical law and exploring (in the Talmud) how it is to be followed into modern times.  And they are still here, and thriving.  Scholars are not silly enough to believe that the Law has been "correctly" interpreted through time.  Instead, they see it as having been reinterpreted to fit a variety of circumstances not foreseen by the original text.  Even the fiction of an "oral Tora" was constructed to account for those eisegetic reinterpretations.  Jesus himself engaged in reinterpretation of the Law in order to fulfill it.

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, Duncan said:

When i was a teenage the Elders told me there was a scripture in the Bible that says beating your kids is okay. Sometime later our fairly new convert Sunday School teacher asked us if we have any questions about the church that we could write them down and give them to her and next week she would have an answer. So, wrote my question about where does it say specifically in the Bible that beating your kids is okay. Next sunday, she was all a flutter. She told us she's been praying and crying and trying to find an answer to this one question and she's said that if anything is amiss to let her know and it's not our fault and that kind of thing. She asked us who asked about being beaten by your parents and using the Bible as justification? I said I did because the Missionaries told me in the Bible and I just wanted to know where it is................ oh, boy, was she mad!!!!!!!!!!! no,no one was getting a beaten from any parents

Cute.  However, the reference is probably to "spare the rod and spoil the child" (Proverbs 13:24), obviously a free translation.  Many such proverbial sayings (wisdom literature) can be quoted, even though the very opposite can often be found in Scripture.

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, Rivers said:

I recently finished reading This Is My Doctrine by Charles Harrel.  It’s a fascinating read which is all about different ways Mormon doctrines have been understood at different periods of time.  

The thing that really stuck out to me was how much our church proof texts the scriptures.  We are really bad at taking scriptures completely out of context to fit our current theological views. The early Christians did the same with Hebrew Bible.  

Actually the early Christians used primarily the Greek Septuagint Bible, some (including Jesus) referring to the Aramaic translations of Scripture, and sometimes reading the Hebrew Bible (liturgically).  As time went on, use of the Hebrew became nearly unknown, Greek and then Latin dominating all reading and interpretation.

I don't see that we take Scripture out of context all that much in the LDS Church.  The Protestants and Catholics do accuse us of that, but they say that only because they have a dog in that fight.  By and large LDS understanding of Scripture comports with the understanding of non-Mormon scholars.

5 hours ago, Rivers said:

As a church which believes in continuing revelation, why do we have to proof-text in order to explain our theology.  Shouldn’t modern revelation be enough to speak for itself?

Referring to Scripture is a reasonable thing to do when discussing biblical religion with non-members.  Polls show that Mormons are more familiar with Scripture than non-Mormons, so it is important to back up our claims with actual citations of sources -- something which we are able to do.  We mustn't confuse that with illicit prooftexting.

[The Nehor]

7 hours ago, Rivers said:

In this presentation, Bro. Harrell says that critics claim he didn’t go anti enough while a lot of members said he went too far.

 

The Argument to Moderation probably applies here.

[The Nehor]

6 hours ago, Jeanne said:

I have mentioned this before.but I had an RM that read me Bible passages that said it was okay to pet...

That Song of Solomon......gotta love it.